GH’s Kate Mansi Opens Up About Her Endometriosis Diagnosis
On GENERAL HOSPITAL, Kate Mansi is in the midst of a frontburner storyline where her character, Kristina, is acting as a surrogate for her sister, Molly, who was unable to carry a child due to endometriosis. We imagine that Mansi has connected with the plot personally, as she recently revealed that she suffers from endometriosis herself!
The actress opened up about her experiences with the medical condition — which can cause pregnancy complications — in an Instagram Reel. In her vulnerable post, which coincided with March being Endometriosis Awareness Month, Mansi explained how her diagnosis led her to think of her own family planning.
“March is Endometriosis Awareness Month, so I’m sharing a look into my egg-freezing journey a couple years ago,” she captioned the video, which was a collage of the GH star giving herself hormone shots and ultimately having the procedure to have her eggs harvested. “Contrary to what I had heard and made up in my mind, it was far from the experience it’s been painted as. When I was diagnosed with endo back in 2015, I was told to freeze my eggs but was too afraid it would hit my mind/body/spirit too hard with the hormones.”
Mansi confessed that worries about weight gain, skin issues, depression, and anxiety caused her to put off the process “for years.” But once she realized her marriage was over, preserving her eggs for childbirth at some point in the future became a “top priority” for the actress.
“I froze my eggs at the least ideal time — in COVID, while going through a divorce — and yet, was filled with an immense amount of joy,” she revealed. “Comfort and empowerment, but most of all, the gift of deeply seeing what I was capable of, physically and emotionally because I made a commitment to myself to reframe my narrative around it.”
Mansi went on to explain that she filmed herself doing every hormone shot “so I felt safe and could show doctors what I did if anything went wrong” and often FaceTimed with pals like her former DAYS OF OUR LIVES cousin Shelley Hennig (who played Stephanie to Mansi’s Abby) to help her maintain a sense of humor throughout the process.
“The experience was not without challenges, but the strength I gained from them only furthered my connection to myself,” Mansi concluded, offering a few words of support for others in a similar situation. “Freezing your eggs (or anything seemingly daunting for that matter) doesn’t have to be anything more than what you choose to make it.”
